Her destination was Number 19 Admirala Fokina street, home and business center of the leader of the Three Families Tong, Hou [lord or nobleman] Eadric [wealthy monarch], a name he chose for himself when he gained power in the tong—much more significant that his humble birth name Chen Xiao Ming. There was nothing particularly striking about the tong leader’s house; it was much like the rest of the seedy red brick buildings with their archways, balconies and nooks, and crannies where secrets thrived. Millionka—a labyrinth of narrow alleyways–was the original gathering center for Chinese traders who opened their shops for the sale of food, cloth, clothing, trinkets, religious icons, and Chinese medicines for both the Chinese who lived there and the transient soldiers and sailors. During the latter years of the nineteenth century, there were a great many Chinese—as many as 50,000 to perhaps even 100,000—and another 10,000 Chosŏns crammed into a physical area no larger than two city blocks in a major American city.
The presence of so many Chinese, Chosŏns, and Japanese is understandable when it is realized that Vladivostok is about one hundred miles from the borders of China, Chosŏn, and Japan. Late in the century permanent red brick homes were built. Most businesses were operated out of portions of the living quarters. The quarter was known for its bustling discount commerce, but was notorious for its plethora of opium dens, brothels catering to all tastes, and ornate gambling halls. In all practicality, Chinese tongs had total control in the quarter—making it essentially a nest of crime. Police came there only in the greatest rarity.
Alexandra came to Millionka for the same reason most Russian gentry did: to solidify a criminal enterprise. Others came to enjoy the wickedness for themselves, but Alexandra had no interest in any of that. Her purpose was money.
The massive Don Cossack, Stenka Mazepa was very hesitant about entering Number 19, a dilapidated red brick building on a poorly maintained street.
“Missy,” he said, “maybe we not to go in here. Not safe.”
“Not to worry, Stenka, I am known here, and they want to do business with me. Be calm, I will protect you,” she said with a laugh he did not share.
He looked down at the petite, clean, well dressed princess of a girl and said, “I exist for you. At least have it be I who goes in first. Who know what evil lurks here.”
She laughed gently, fond of his caring for her, but she was not to be dissuaded. She gave a short nod towards the door, and Stenka straightened his shoulders and walked to the heavy teak door and rapped on the door knocker.
A small window in the door opened briefly.
A stern oval shaped eye looked out, and a guttural voice asked, “What wanted here, Báirén fùnǚ?”
Alexandra and Stenka ignored the slightly disrespectful characterization of her as a white woman.
“To see important leader, Hou Eadric, who has requested our presence for the purpose of doing business.”
“Wait,” the faceless voice ordered in gruff Mandarin.
Five minutes later, the door opened, and a small Chinese man stepped out and greeted Alexandra and Stenka, bowed deeply, and said, “Zao”
Alexandra responded respectfully with, “Nín hǎo” and bowed even more deeply than Hou Eadric.
He nodded, and asked, “M chī le ma?”
Alexandra replied before the more fluent Stenka could caution her, “No, thank you, I have already eaten a fine Chinese breakfast.”
She was taken aback when the haughty little man began to laugh almost uncontrollably. She looked at Stenka for guidance.
He whispered, “Nǐ chī le ma, is just a formality like Nín hǎo. When he asks, ‘have you eaten?’ he just means it as if he were saying good morning as he said when he first spoke.”
“Oh,” she said and blushed.”
Hou Eadric wiped his eyes, and smiled benevolently, at least as benevolently as his battle-scarred and habitually austere face could manage.
He looked her over carefully.
She did the same with him. The man was a little over five feet tall, slender with long fingers and very long painted fingernails. He wore lipstick, more than she did. He had long greying hair and an unruly long mustache and beard made his already almost skeletal face even thinner. His clothing seemed anachronistic, something out of the old Qing dynasty: a slightly A-line Manchu Changshan blue silk robes with a square green silk emblem sewn to the front, and a shaved head with a long queue hanging down his back which made him look like an almost comic opera throwback.
Then, he swept his right arm with a long wide ornate silk sleeve as a grand gesture for the two to enter what he called his “humble home”. It was certainly that. Alexandra was glad that she had not eaten a large breakfast. It might well have come back up as they entered the large dark front room.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
BIG BUSINESS IN MILLIONKA
“Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.”
—Fyodor Dostoevsky,
The Brothers Karamazov, 1879
Number 19 Admirala Fokina Street, Chinatown, Vladivostok, Russia, June 23, 1879
The entryway of the great leader of the Three Families Tong, would have been expected to be at least as grand as the Tarasova mansion on Pekinskaya Street. That expectation died the instant Alexandra and Stenka stepped foot onto the dirt floor. It was a veritable miasma, strewn with clutter, organic garbage, dog and human excrement. The stench was a noxious mix of feces, urine, opium smoke, alcohol vomitus, dirt, marsh gas, and soot. Alexandra did her best not to wretch or to put her handkerchief over her nose and mouth.
Chinese men and women–mostly elderly with drooping eyelids and sick looking–lay around on low couches puffing on opium pipes. A crowd of younger men and women–mostly looking dirty and dissolute–sat around mahjong and gambling tables. There seemed to be a requirement that the gambler had to start drunk and get drunk enough to topple off his or her chair before he could leave the table. The room’s small cheap glass windows were covered with soot; so, no light could get in. They were scattered around the walls with no plan for either utilitarian or esthetic value. The room had low ceilings, and the sound of rats skittering along the beams could not be missed. Patrons and onlookers were served with small ceramic porcelain cups of weak tea or Báijiǔ [cheap Chinese vodka].
Alexandra determined to limit her stay in that hellish place to no more than a quarter of an hour lest she and Stenka come down with some exotic disease. He kept his eyes stoically forward, but he had to wipe the tears from the sting of the miasmic air from his eyes frequently. The only light in the Stygian room came from a dozen or so smoky candles scattered around the room haphazardly.
Hou Eadric walked briskly, robes dragging the dirt floor behind him creating small puffs of vile smelling dust. He had an unreadable flat expression, as devoid of communication as bing bread. He did not appear to take any notice of the scents wafting around him or of the collection of human dross and refuse he had to sidestep to make his way through the room. He never looked back to see if the young aristocratic girl or her menacing body guard were following him.
He led them out into a courtyard which was as different from the room they left behind as the paintings Russian monks made to distinguish heaven and hell.
“This is the Garden of Heaven,” Hou said and bade them to sit on one of the stone benches lining a lovely clear manmade waterfall whose waters flowed into a small pond covered with large lily pads and in which large golden koi swam languorously about.
Hou’s piece of heaven held all the elements of a classical 3,000-year-old Chinese garden: water, architecture, vegetation, and rocks, all placed and tended with assiduous care. The Garden of Heaven was enclosed by stone walls and had two ponds which looked like they had been placed there by Shàngdì–the Lord on High–imported rock works, a faux mountain, trees and flowers, and an assortment of small halls and pavilions within the garden, connected by winding paths and zig-zag galleries. By moving from stru
cture to structure, visitors could view a series of carefully composed scenes, unrolling like a scroll of landscape water color paintings. The galleries or seasonal pavilions included a Pavilion of Mandarin Ducks open to allow cool air during the summer, and a pavilion for viewing autumn foliage. There were sections facing south, toward a pine tree-filled courtyard and plum trees. The time of plum trees coming into blossom heralds spring.
The garden–in stark contrast to the hellish interior of the house–had a light scent of lavender, dama de noche–night blooming jasmine–and honeysuckle. It was a delightful, tranquil place to do business with a murderous pirate.
“I have done business with your father Abram and his partners, Jardine, Matheson, even with the taipan himself. Why have you come, young one?”
“My father wishes me to handle the business with the Three Families Tong. I speak fluent Mandarin; I have commanded ships and have made many successful commercial voyages for the company; and I have fought Zhèng Yi and Ching Shih of the Red Flag Fleet and won. Not to boast, but I can command men, strike a hard bargain; and I can protect my ships, their cargoes, and my men. They will obey my slightest command. I wish to arrive at a contract with you.”
She said it all with a serene poker face which belied her youth and aristocratic demeanor.
Hou could not resist a small smile of incredulity. He looked at Stenka Mazepa, the formidable Cossack, for confirmation. The stone-faced body guard nodded his acknowledgment of his young charge’s statements. He was not accustomed to being considered a liar, and his entire demeanor conveyed his intention to defend his honor.
“I am most impressed. What does your esteemed father, Abram, have in mind?”
“That I be regarded by you as you would him. I will never cheat you, lie to you, or cause you to doubt the wisdom of doing business with me as an equal. That is my father’s wish; and from now on, we will do our business together. I will report to him, but he will leave the decisions and negotiations to me. Are we to do business?”
Hou paused and did a little mental tallying. The girl demonstrated the qualities valued by the Chinese; she was careful to save and to give face; she showed respect to him as an elder; she was patient, polite, and modest. She also had an inner core of courage and toughness. He–of course–was well versed in her brave exploits.
He said, “It is agreed.”
Then he abruptly left the garden and returned to the odious main room of his house.
Alexandra gave Stenka a quizzical look.
He said, “Hou will honor a fair contract. It is not done to sign a paper to guarantee a contract upon completing face-to-face meeting. To do so would indicate a lack of trust and would result in a loss of face from you and by him. You have succeeded. Expect a written and detailed contract to be delivered to your house within the week. You have a partner. Be careful. For all of his politeness and culture he would cut your throat for a round hole coin.”
Alexandra and Stenka left the Garden of Heaven at Number 19 Admirala Fokina Street via a nearly hidden exit through the garden wall and found themselves back in the teeming throngs of coolies, sailors, beggars, and cutpockets. The narrow streets were like the bottom of a canyon, the walls of which were lined with three story theaters, taverns, gambling houses, opium dens, and more than a few flagrant brothels. Hawkers, jinrickshaw pullers, three-ball and cup enticers, and scores of scarred, battered, and threatening men—the scum of the earth—chanced to look at Alexandra with wickedness in their eyes. Those glances immediately vanished when they saw the giant Caucasian who gently held the girl’s delicate arm. He was armed with a Turkish saber, a thick Bowie knife from America, a brace of flintlock pistols, and a double-barreled musket slung loosely across his huge chest. No one considered it to be worth his while to take a chance with the behemoth.
They boarded the Tarasova carriage whose driver had waited with infinite patience until they returned and looked very relieved to have them back under his care and keeping. He avoided Chinatown as often as he could and was glad to be quit of it now.
Late that evening, a coolie rapped on the door of Tarasova House, No. 71 Pekinskaya Street. Because it was late and highly unusual for anyone–let alone a ragged coolie–to call at the fur magnate’s residence, two powerfully built and heavily armed Buryats answered the knock on the great doors.
“No beggars,” the two Buryats said at the same time.
“So, solly, great sirs, I have not come with hands out.”
He presented his hands palms up and palms down to indicate that he did not have a weapon. The hands were filthy, and his long, fingernails were grimy and repugnant, the result of an energetic avoidance of bathing, probably lifelong. He had a strange fashion anomaly–Saint Stanislaus and Saint Anne—second class medals attached to his ragged overblouse.
“I bear important paper for the missy. Please to bring her to me. Thanking you bery much.”
“What is ‘missy’s name that you have the audacity to talk with, tiān gōu bàilèi?”
If being called ‘gutter scum’ bothered the coolie, he made no indication that it did. In all probability, he had been called that and worse in his time. What he did care about was getting paid; and the instructions from the great tong leader, Hou Eadric, were explicit. Give the document into the hands of the girl called, Alexandra, explain who sent it, and leave. He was told to have the girl meet Hou the following day with the parchment bearing her signature or sign at the Chin Wang Café on Ocean Avenue at noon. Failure, he knew meant no pay and probably worse. It gave him courage.
“Is Alexandra of the family Yusupov, great sirs. It is most serious. You are asked to let her know that I am here, and she will come at once. That is what my instructions say. Please, kind sirs. Take pity on a poor man who must do small things to keep his belly full. I mean no trouble.”
The two Buryats nodded. One stayed with the raggedy bag of bones with the long, greasy queue. The other trotted quickly to Alexandra’s room.
“Missy, there is a poor man at the entrance who says he has important business that you will want to see. Shall I just send the beggar away?”
“No, Omar. I will see him. I know what this is about. I will follow you to the front door.”
The coolie bowed obsequiously, effusively, and frequently.
“I am honored greatly, great princess. I am instructed that I am to give what I carry to you without others being present.”
Alexandra smiled at her Buryats and waved them back inside the house.
“Let me see,” she said.
He reached into the front of his tunic and pulled out a parchment which was protected with a spotless linen cloth. She examined it closely, signed her name, and lit the wick to heat the burgundy sealing wax. When she had exactly the right amount of wax, at exactly the right consistency, she pressed it with the stamp which affixed the Tarasova seal.
“This will do,” she said imperiously. “Tell Master Hou that I will meet him tomorrow as you instructed. Please take care to keep this paper clean and unwrinkled and take it directly the leader.”
He did as she said and vanished back into the darkness.
Alexandra studied the contract very, very carefully until the early hours of the day and decided it was all legally correct and binding. It was a contract which held promise of great mutual wealth, and it could have been interpreted by a critic as being very near if not over the line of legality. She knew she had just signed a pact with the devil.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
BALAGANSK
“When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny.”
—Paulo Coelho, The Devil and Miss Prym
, A Novel of Temptation, 2000
Balagansk Penitentiary, Irkutsk Ob
last, Far East Russia, July 28, 1879
The Vladivostok newspaper carried an announcement important to the government of the Irkutsk oblast and to its society in general, especially to the Russians exiled to Siberia and the Far East. The formal announcement came from the administrative center in Irkutsk.
“Tzar Alexander II and governor of the Irkutsk Krai, announce a change of command in the Balagansk District and Penitentiary to take place 12 August, 1879. The current commandant, Major Nikita Sergeivich Yestremsky, will turn over his command to General mayor Boris Nikolaiovich Yusupov. Major Yestremsky will assume a post in the Imperial Military Academy in Novonikolaevsk. We take pleasure in General mayor Yusupov’s appointment. He is the hero of the Bulgarian campaign some years ago. The changing-of-the-guard ceremony is open to the public. Proper dress is required.”
–Signed,
Altan Oyuunchimeg
Altan Oyuunchimeg
Governor, Irkutsk Krai,
28 July, 1879
Alexandra was excited by the news. Significant social events were infrequent in Far East Russia; and this might promise to be exciting, she thought to herself. She was pleased when her father and mother both announced that the entire Tarasova family would attend along with other oblast dignitaries. For Alexandra and her brothers–Veniamin and Valéry Abramovich–it would be a chance to get dressed up in formal finery and to see a genuine Russian hero. Father Abram considered it to be an indicator of Vladivostok and the Irkutsk oblast’s coming of age. Mother Irina was determined to make hers and her families presence stand out above the rest of the Oblast society.
The weather was beautiful—bright sun, healthy green grasses, and white birch trees owing to the ample winter snows and spring rains, and no hint of rain or high winds in the near future. Anticipation was high.
The Mysterious Alexandra Tarasova-Yusupov Page 15